Powerful Hurricane Rita Heads Towards Texas
Posted on September 21, 2005
Hurricane Rita is now a powerful category four hurricane with 140 mph sustained winds. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) still shows the storm tracking in just south of the Galveston Bay area. However, as the NHC says a hurricane is not just a point on a map.
Rita will be a large storm so many miles of coastline will be impacted and not just where the storm makes landfall. This was a lesson learned well with Hurricane Katrina which flooded New Orleans and devastated the entire coast of Mississippi and up to several miles inland. Rita could actually be stronger than the 140 mph sustained winds presently assigned to it. The NHC's hurricane hunter aircraft have been having computer problems and have not been able to measure the storm -- but they are expected to get an accurate measurement of the storm's winds later today. The 5PM EST advisory should give the correct wind speed.
A feature on the extensive damage a powerful hurricane like Hurricane Rita could do the Houston area can be found here.